Thursday, June 21, 2007

agency.com in the UK has just release the findings of some UK research that looks at who is driving the conversation on the web. They've launched a blog, in good conversational style, where you can download a summary of the research.

This is interesting on many levels, but to us because the main finding looks at the issue of engagement, something that Sean began talking about a few weeks ago on his blog, and it is a conversation that is getting more airtime. And of course there is plenty of discourse on the matter all over the blogsphere - Jeffe's stuff in particular.

And as I started on this a couple of posts ago - have a look at Helium.com, if I ever get out of meetings, I'm going to try and share some views!

If you've recently downloaded the latest version of Adobe's Acrobat reader, you'll have seen the new button that links your document straight through to FedEx Kinko's (at least I think it is new). This is a really smart partnership - to link the ubiquitous document reader with a simple bulk document production service.

We had to produce a bunch of documents in the office recently and the service from FedEx Kinko was great. To be able to do it directly from a piece of software is just a smart extension of the service both brands offer that just makes the user's life much easier.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Every time I fly here in the US, I try and pick up a newspaper or magazine that I've never read before. This week, I grabbed a copy of U.S.News & World Report. There is a great article which briefly discussed something that has bugged me for a while. All this talk of "citizen media" and the rise of youtube et al has been disappointing for me. While it allows lots of people to express themselves, explore their own creativity and all that, much of it is absolute rubbish. And, while there is the occasional good laugh, I personally want to have content that is written by those of a more mature and knowledgeable sensibility.

This US News article looked at a handful of social media sites and what they are about - which is how I discovered Helium.com. This is a site where you submit your content for others to rate on quality - and you can only have a say if you contribute yourself. Brilliant. From my initial run through some of the content looks reasonable so if you crave more from the voice of the masses, check it out.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

I was at the cinema over the weekend with the kids and we saw an ad while we tipped popcorn all over the floor for the Nikon.

If you watched that you know that they've given 200 D40's to people in Georgetown (South Carolina), to use, share their pictures and talk about how good or not the camera is. For the first time in a while I actually went to a site as a result of seeing an ad. Remembered the URL and everything. Didn't even need to Gooogle it! I thought it was a neat idea for such a category, and the spot was simply executed. The site is good too - but it loads with pictures of the people whom the camera's were given too. Really good pictures - and I thought, who took those then? as these are supposed to be the people using the cameras? One more click and you get to their own personal efforts - which are great little windows into their lives. And it seems that this is a fantastic camera.

There is a neat promotion here also that gets you to spend time looking around the site. Nikon are giving away 40 cameras over 40 days - you have to find the small camera image hidden on a page, click it and enter a sweepstake. I've always been a Nikon fan - from the day my Dad bought me an FM body in my teens - and I thought this was a relevant idea that works well in the media being used.